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and for which he so freely shed his precious blood. It pictures to us the world in its sin, in its deep, dark, inveterate, wilful, chosen sin. It tells us of six hundred millions of heathen, in utter ruin, bound hand and foot by Satan, through various systems of idolatry, and false religion. It causes us to see how improbable is their repentance under present influences, even when through an unknown Saviour, repentance might avail. It spreads before us the glorious gospel of the Son of God as the remedy divinely provided for this desperate condition of disease, as a message of hope to the world, as crowded with the truth which can alone move the masses of the heathen to repent and live. It confronts us with Christ's solemn and explicit command to "preach this gospel to every creature." It demands that we shall obey this injunction and make obedience to it the great business of life. Has the Christian church yet risen to the magnitude of this conception? Is it yet baptized with this spirit?

ARTICLE III.

WAS PETER IN ROME, AND BISHOP OF THE CHURCH AT

ROME? 1

A HISTORICO-CRITICO INQUIRY BY J. ELLendorf.

TRANSLATED FROM THE

GERMAN BY E. GOODRICH SMITH, M. A., WASHINGTON, D. C.

§ 1. Introduction.

THE Romish bishops maintain that they have been constituted by God for the supreme rule of the church; that Christ the Lord has appointed them his vicegerents on earth, and that they ought to govern the church in his stead.

But as there is no declaration, and nowhere any mention

Ist Petrus in Rom und Bischof der Römischen Kiche gewesen. Eine historisch-Kritische Untersuchung von J. Ellendorf.

in the Holy Scriptures of a transmission of such a dignity and power to the Romish bishops, they have therefore attempted to establish it in the following way: “ Christ, beyond all doubt, gave to Peter the primacy above all the apostles, and appointed him to be the supreme head of the church. This power and dignity of his, Peter has transmitted to the Romish bishops as his successors and his heirs in the Romish see."

Thus the question is now to be regarded as thrown over to the domain of tradition, and proceeds on the supposition that Peter was a bishop, and indeed the first bishop, of Rome. As the pretended primacy was given to Peter the apostle, he must first be a bishop before he could have bishops for his successors, and make them heirs of his primacy.

Let us now hear what is brought forward from tradition to establish this transmission. It is said: "Until A. d. 37, Peter stood at the head of the church that was forming at Jerusalem and in the region around. But in that year he left Jerusalem and went to Antioch, where he founded a church, and for seven years presided over it as a bishop. After this period, and in the second year of the reign of Claudius, î. d. 42, he journeyed to Rome, where he vanquished Simon Magus, preached the gospel, founded a church, and placed himself at the head of it as its bishop. As such he continued till A. D. 50, when Claudius banished the Jews from Rome. Peter was then obliged to flee, and he betook himself to Palestine and Jerusalem, where in a. D. 51, he held and presided over the first council on the occasion of the controversy respecting the circumcision of the Gentile Christians. Thence he went to Antioch. During this time the emperor Claudius died, and Peter now returned through Asia Minor, where he founded numerous churches, and across Sicily and Lower Italy to Rome, which he reached under Nero's reign, and re-occupied his see. From Rome he made many apostolic journeys into the countries of the West: to

1 That this is not so wholly beyond all doubt I have shown in my Treatise über den Primat der Röm. Bischöfe, Kapitel I. (on the Primacy of the Romish bishops. Chap I.).

Gaul, and Britain, and even to Spain and Africa, and everywhere founded churches to which he assigned bishops from among his disciples. Finally he was put to death, together with Paul, at Rome, and there buried, under the reign of Nero, A. D. 65 (66, 67, 69). Before his death he appointed Linus his successor as bishop of Rome and as the heir of his primacy, which in this way he transmitted to the Roman bishops."

This is the pith and substance of the tradition on which, as its foundation, rests the Primacy of the Romish bishops; thus has the Romish church, and thus for centuries have the most celebrated Roman Catholic theologians, as Bellarmin, Baronius, Abraham Echellensis, Leo Allatius, Halloixius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander, Valesius, Pamelius, Feuardent, Lupus, Thomassin and hundreds of others maintained it, and in their way proved and propounded it as irrefragable truth. This Tradition, on which as pillars the whole fabric of the Roman Catholic church rests, they have strove to sustain and uphold, well knowing that with it their whole structure goes down together. Hence this tradition, in the course of time, has received a dogmatical authority, and indeed, is almost in due form, elevated into a dogma; attacks on it in the Roman Catholic church are, at the outset, declared to be impious, schismatic and heretical, subject to be punished and to be put down by the several ecclesiastical penalties, while those made by Protestants, at the best, have been honored with a notice by individual learned Catholics only to refute them; but in general have been passed over, especially by Rome, with a contemptuous silence.

§ 2. Sources of this tradition.

If we inquire for the sources of this tradition, the Holy Scriptures afford us nothing but the bare facts that Peter of ficiated as an apostle in the church of Jerusalem and perhaps presided over it; that there, in a. D. 45, he was put in prison by Herod; but, miraculously delivered, he left the city to betake himself to another place; that he was present at

the council of Jerusalem, in A. D. 51 (53), and soon after (Gal. ii.) he was at Antioch; and that finally, according to 1 Pet. 5: 13, he wrote from Babylon to the churches of Asia Minor, which were founded by him. We see that here there is not the slightest reference to be found to Peter's being at Rome. All that brings him in contact with Rome belongs to the purely historical, not to the biblical tradition.

The sources of the historical tradition are two-fold, apocryphal and true. The former may well be the oldest, as will be evident in the course of this investigation; they are from the second, third, and fourth centuries, and may be regarded as the special supports of this tradition; for their main purpose is to place Peter very early at Rome, make him bishop of the church there, and have him die there. This is carried out even to the minutest details. Here belong the Passiones Petri et Pauli, falsely ascribed to Linus, and to Dionysius the Areopagite; the Acta Marcelli, a biography of Peter; the Life of St. John by Prochorus, one of the seven deacons; the Recognitiones and Homilies of St. Clement, a pretended successor of Peter, and his Letter to James, in which he announces to him Peter's death; the Apostolical Constitutions, made as pretended by Clemens; the Liber Pontificialis, falsely attributed to pope Damasus, etc. In these writings the Tradition originated, was developed and spun out, into the minutest particulars. Their authority, as historical testimonies, is good for nothing.

It is evidently from these turbid fountains, as we shall hereafter show, that Papias, Clemens of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen have drawn, to prove Peter's abode in Rome; and to them, too, may be joined Dionysius of Corinth. Irenæus is the first who names Peter with Paul as founders of the church of Rome; that by them both Linus was consecrated first bishop of Rome; and first in the third century, Stephen I. and Cyprian name Peter as the first bishop of Rome. But these accounts are very short and are, for the most part, only notices incidentally thrown in.

The first detailed statement of this tradition is given us by Eusebius, who was bishop of Cæsarea, about a. D. 350.

He says that when Simon Magus went from Palestine to Rome, and there had led astray many persons, Peter, aroused by the Holy Spirit, hastened after him. He arrived at Rome in the second year of the reign of Claudius, A. D. 42; there he vanquished Simon, preached the gospel, founded a church, presided over it as bishop for twenty-five years, and suffered death under Nero, in a. D. 67. it verbatim, from whom it stream, through the church. of Simon Magus at Rome, but without any mention of Peter. Of Peter's abode at Rome, the following fathers are perfectly silent: Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Hermas, and Hegesippus.

From Eusebius, Jerome took has flowed on, as a continued Justin likewise relates the story

§ 3. The Question proposed.

In this state of the authorities, it is nothing but a foolish arrogance to declare the examination respecting the truth of the tradition as to Peter superfluous, indiscreet, altogether insulting to the Romish, and injurious to the whole church, which has so long established that tradition as a true, correct, and genuine historical one. Yet more the dignity and importance of the subject, the freedom of historical investigation, which must examine everything that lies within its sphere, demands that this investigation be undertaken anew and carried out to the attainment of as sure a result as possible. If the tradition is true, and, as a genuine historical one, is sustained by the most credible witnesses, the Romish church need not shrink from the examination. If it is false, supported by no historical documents, then a regard for truth demands that the falsehood be exposed, and this tradition, with all that has been deduced from it, falls to the ground.

This investigation we will here undertake; we will subject the tradition relative to Peter to a historico-critical examination. To lay hold of the matter, as it were, at the root, we will concentrate it in this inquiry:

"WAS PETER EVER IN ROME?"

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